SAM BATEMAN. Reflections on the United States Navy

The U.S. Navy had a horror year in 2017 with tragic accidents and a major corruption scandal. Rather than the cause mainly being a budgetary one with inadequate resources allowed the Navy, deeper cultural issues might also be involved.

The U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings is the main professional journal for the U.S. Navy. It’s widely read not just by American naval personnel but by naval personnel around the world, as well as by academics and others interested in maritime security and naval affairs.

Several articles in the latest Proceedings reflect on events of 2017 – an ‘annus horribilis‘ for the U.S. Navy. These articles look at the two major issues that made it such a bad year for the Navy. In the words of one contributor, these were, ‘profound failures that shook the American public’s confidence in its Navy’.

The first failure was the so-called Fat Leonard affair, an ongoing investigation into the ship support contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), a firm in East Asia run by Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian national known as “Fat Leonard”. Francis is alleged to have provided cash, travel expenses, luxury items, and prostitutes to numerous American naval officers. In return, these officers provided classified material about the movements of ships and submarines, confidential contracting information, and details of law enforcement investigations. The Washington Post called the scandal “perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War”.

Over thirty people have been criminally charged in connection with this bribery and corruption scandal. One admiral, several captains and commanders, and some more junior officers have received jail terms. Six admirals have also been disciplined or admonished.

The second major failure was the series of serious aircraft and surface ships accidents during 2017, including several fatal accidents – notably the collisions involving the destroyers, U.S. Ships Fitzgerald and McCain. Investigations into these collisions revealed a deplorable lack of good seamanship and sound navigational practice, as well as a breakdown in management and a lack of knowledge of vital bridge systems.

As a result of these accidents, the Commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet was sacked and other senior officers removed from their positions. The commanding officers and other personnel from the Fitzgerald and McCain have faced serious disciplinary charges. Admiral Scott Swift, the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, originally tipped to become the next head of the U.S. Pacific Command, retired early.

An article in the latest Proceedings by a junior naval lieutenant reflects on events of 2017. He claims the Navy needs honest self-reckoning to address the professional problems experienced by the Navy during the year. He bravely argues that the Navy suffers from a lack of vision with a focus on procedure rather than people and that senior naval officers are more concerned with government –oriented bureaucracy rather than with maintaining a war footing.

Admiral Swift, the recently retired commander of the Pacific Fleet, has an article in the issue which proclaims the importance of the ‘Fleet’ as the Navy’s basic fighting element with the synergy of its surface, subsurface and air domains. He argues that in his experience, operational commanders, when under stress, revert to the comfort zone of their tactical roots – surface, sub-surface or air. This may be so but it’s the view of a career fighter pilot who may not fully appreciate the problems of the surface ships comprising the Fleet.

The U.S. Navy has three main operational schools – submariners, aviators, and surface warfare officers. American naval aviators do not have bridge experience like that of their British and Australian opposite numbers. And in the case of American naval aviators who fly the navy’s fixed-wing patrol and surveillance aircraft from bases ashore, some might have little, if any, experience at sea.

To some extent, surface warfare officers are the ‘poor cousins’ of the aviation and submarine elites. Senior command positions in the U.S. Navy tend to be held by aviators and submariners. While senior American naval commanders may be highly experienced operationally and strategically, a career aviator may not fully appreciate the problems of the surface fleet.

The Fitzgerald and McCain collisions involved warships crashing around in busy shipping lanes at excessive speed without regard for other users of the sea. This could suggest an attitude of superiority and exceptionalism. The aggressive warrior culture inculcated into all arms of the American military needs to be balanced with some restraint, particularly in peacetime operations at sea. This culture might also breed a failure to learn from past accidents. It’s a persistent worry that the U.S. Navy has been slow to learn from its mistakes.

Another article in the latest Proceedings, written by a serving U.S. naval captain, is called ‘How we lost the Great Pacific War’. It takes the form of a letter written in the future by the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet to the Chief of Naval Operations after the Navy had lost a series of naval engagements in the Western Pacific – presumably against China. He finds that the major cause of failure lay in problems of sustainment, poor readiness and a lack of resources. As the letter concludes ‘We did as well as we could with what we were given’.

This lack of resources and a ‘can do’ attitude are common themes both in the articles in the latest Proceedings, as well as in the investigations into the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions. One Proceedings article by a retired naval captain claims that ‘resource constraints and not leadership failings lie at the heart of the Seventh Fleet’s operational problems’. However, it’s too simple to see the solution just in terms of increasing the Navy’s budget. There may also be deeper cultural issues to be addressed.

Dr Sam Bateman is Professorial Research Fellow, Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, University of Wollongong.

One Response to SAM BATEMAN. Reflections on the United States Navy

During my years living in Japan I remember a gun(g) ho US submarine captain surfacing and in that manoeuvre (had he allowed some civilian to take part? – dodgy stuff lies at the back of my memory) overturning a surface High School Fisheries vessel – a number of students dying. All kinds of initial cover-up went on.

I taught a lad who attended one of the country’s Fisheries High Schools – so took a particular interest – though over 20 years ago… It always strikes me as ironic that so much of our tax monies which should go into our public schools and health facilities are siphoned off to foreign military hardware fighter or navy ship-builders – whether the US or the UK – while we sit dumbly back (where are informed journalists attacking this profligacy and jingoistic announcements) and accept – stupefied by the selfie faces of ignorant politicians – always a uniform at hand, though – and the Minister’s use last night of the weasel word “lethality” which quite frankly has never been part of any proper-speaking person I have ever known. Some carrot dangling about possibilities for an Australian design somewhere down the track…Rot and nonsense.

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